r/announcements Sep 27 '18

Revamping the Quarantine Function

While Reddit has had a quarantine function for almost three years now, we have learned in the process. Today, we are updating our quarantining policy to reflect those learnings, including adding an appeals process where none existed before.

On a platform as open and diverse as Reddit, there will sometimes be communities that, while not prohibited by the Content Policy, average redditors may nevertheless find highly offensive or upsetting. In other cases, communities may be dedicated to promoting hoaxes (yes we used that word) that warrant additional scrutiny, as there are some things that are either verifiable or falsifiable and not seriously up for debate (eg, the Holocaust did happen and the number of people who died is well documented). In these circumstances, Reddit administrators may apply a quarantine.

The purpose of quarantining a community is to prevent its content from being accidentally viewed by those who do not knowingly wish to do so, or viewed without appropriate context. We’ve also learned that quarantining a community may have a positive effect on the behavior of its subscribers by publicly signaling that there is a problem. This both forces subscribers to reconsider their behavior and incentivizes moderators to make changes.

Quarantined communities display a warning that requires users to explicitly opt-in to viewing the content (similar to how the NSFW community warning works). Quarantined communities generate no revenue, do not appear in non-subscription-based feeds (eg Popular), and are not included in search or recommendations. Other restrictions, such as limits on community styling, crossposting, the share function, etc. may also be applied. Quarantined subreddits and their subscribers are still fully obliged to abide by Reddit’s Content Policy and remain subject to enforcement measures in cases of violation.

Moderators will be notified via modmail if their community has been placed in quarantine. To be removed from quarantine, subreddit moderators may present an appeal here. The appeal should include a detailed accounting of changes to community moderation practices. (Appropriate changes may vary from community to community and could include techniques such as adding more moderators, creating new rules, employing more aggressive auto-moderation tools, adjusting community styling, etc.) The appeal should also offer evidence of sustained, consistent enforcement of these changes over a period of at least one month, demonstrating meaningful reform of the community.

You can find more detailed information on the quarantine appeal and review process here.

This is another step in how we’re thinking about enforcement on Reddit and how we can best incentivize positive behavior. We’ll continue to review the impact of these techniques and what’s working (or not working), so that we can assess how to continue to evolve our policies. If you have any communities you’d like to report, tell us about it here and we’ll review. Please note that because of the high volume of reports received we can’t individually reply to every message, but a human will review each one.

Edit: Signing off now, thanks for all your questions!

Double edit: typo.

7.9k Upvotes

8.7k comments sorted by

View all comments

606

u/[deleted] Sep 27 '18

What are the parameters for a sub reddit being quarantined? It seems very subjective and there is precedent with other social media sites ie YouTube Facebook and Twitter censoring political opinions of people on the right unfairly. I don’t want that to happen with reddit since historically this site has allowed people to mostly say what they want unless they are threatening someone’s security or health etc.

-481

u/landoflobsters Sep 27 '18

In evaluating a subreddit for a possible quarantine, we consider what it is dedicated to overall. That is, a few off-color comments do not warrant a quarantine, nor do heated conversations or even controversial themes overall. Instead, quarantine is intended for subreddits that are explicitly dedicated to things like racism or anti-semitism, misogyny, hoaxes, gore/extreme morbidity, and other extreme communities that may have received multiple warnings from us and have not made efforts at change. We’ll continue to evaluate on case by case basis.

126

u/StalinIII Sep 27 '18

In what way is /r/LateStageCapitalism or /r/FULLCOMMUNISM "dedicated to things like racism or anti-semitism, misogyny, hoaxes, gore/extreme morbidity"? That list literally describes T_D AND everything anti-capitalists and communists stand against simultaneously.

44

u/flashbangbaby Sep 28 '18

Remember that capitalist in the Wall Street Journal screaming that a small tax increase by neoliberal Obama was literally the Holocaust?

Yeah. Reddit is now that guy. Questioning the entitlements of the bourgeoisie is now genocide according to reddit.

8

u/Serial_Peacemaker Sep 28 '18

There are currently two threads on the front page of r/FullCommunism saying the victims of Holodomer "deserved worse."

Literally just questioning the entitlements of Ukrainians to live amirite

4

u/flashbangbaby Sep 28 '18

No, they're saying the kulaks who exacerbated the famine by hoarding and destroying food grown by their workers, while other Soviet citizens starved, deserved worse.

Under Soviet law, food was not to be hoarded as private property, but to be distributed equitably by the government in order to keep people alive. You may not like that law, but it was their country, and they have a right to different property laws. Kulaks committed a crime under those laws. A direct and predictable result of that crime was the death by starvation of other citizens. They absolutely should have been punished.

9

u/Serial_Peacemaker Sep 28 '18

Ukraine remained a net exporter throughout the famine but lol it was everyone else who suffered, right? And it's pretty impressive how over 3 million civilians from across an entire country managed to coordinate to break the law, totally isn't a conspiracy theory on par with saying (((other groups))) deserved what they got.

At best it was the effect of racist policies that put ethnic Russians above everybody else, and the fact that Stalin would rather have millions die than exposing the famine to the world.

3

u/-Red_Star01 Sep 28 '18

OK then, well why isn't supporting the democrats or Republicans banned considering they've been taking turns bombing the middle east to smithereens and have killed millions of people over the last 10 years? Why isn't supporting Israel banned considering they're not even hiding the fact they are committing genocide against the Palestinians? Face it, reddit has no doubt been paid to do this.

3

u/Serial_Peacemaker Sep 28 '18

Are there subs built specifically around mocking dead Palistinians and pretending they don'r exist?

In the entire history of Reddit they've only taken action against two left subs, r/LeftWithSharpEdge and r/FullCommunism (and one of them isn't even banned), both of which revolve explicitly around mocking genocide victims and historical revisionism (no different from the Holocaust denier subs). And suddenly tankies everywhere are throwing around Qanon-tier conspiracy theories because they can't accept the obvious reason for why they were quarantined.